Consoles becoming more like PCs, says Alienware

PC manufacturer says Microsoft and Sony have adopted innovations from the PC space for their next-generation consoles.

Game consoles and PCs are more alike than ever before, according to Alienware general manager Frank Azor. Speaking with PCGamesN, Azor said the distinctions between Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC architecture are slipping away.

"A lot of the innovations and things that are proven on the PC are making their ways onto consoles," Azor said. "The consoles are looking more and more like PCs every day."

The Xbox One and PS4 are both built on a PC-focused x86 architecture. And from a service standpoint, Azor pointed out, the platforms are also adopting features PC gamers have had for years.

"You're installing games now instead of running them off the disc, because that's the right thing to do; you're downloading games digitally, which we've been doing on PC for years; they're integrating certain TV aspects and stuff--well, ten years ago we started experimenting with media center," Azor said.

I just can't get why people argue what's best for gaming. C'mon people, everybody has their own preference. Some people don't need PC's but love to play games so they buy a console. Some people also want to to have instant gaming after working or want to play games while "Alt+Tab"ing to watch p()rn (gotcha!).

-from a guy who grew up from the NES era and has a father who had a PC with 5-inch diskettes of his games.

I think that Frank Azor is doing the right thing in defending it's company, yet a console will always be a console and a computer will always be a computer, if we see things consoles have things that computers don't have and computers have things that consoles don't have.

Computers are great machines (I don't like computers much, I like consoles more) they can do so many things that consoles can't do, and they can always be better and improved, so it's a very useful machine yet the probability of a computer being broken is high, the world is facing a crises and buying a decent computer or upgrading your own it's expensive, and many other things, positive and negative about computers (A decent gaming computer costs around 700 euros)

Now consoles are great machines, with great titles, with great online services, few hackers, few glitches and many other things, yet consoles are just gaming machines and small media centers and nothing else, you can't upgrade consoles, when a new comes out you have to buy it to have better components and to keep up with the times, and many other things.

So like we can see they are different machines, and the components on the consoles were made especially to the consoles, except the RAM but the components are console components because they were made especially for consoles and the companies are now developing the same components for computers.

I am just saying my opinion, everyone is free to like the machine they want to like, I'm just explaining why consoles and computers are always going to be different from each other.

I know PC's are a bit overkill for gaming but do you own a PC and a console? Most people have PC's so they can check email, look for jobs, buy things, book flights, come to gamespot, do business, etc. That's why I like PC's, I can do so much more than play Witcher 3 on!

All Sony and Microsoft are doing are making the sensible decision to chuck any notion of exclusive architectures in favor of one that most developers can understand and code towards. I'm not entirely sure WHY they are doing it - maybe feedback from their multi-platform publishing partners, maybe the realisation that service and exclusives (really, exclusives) are what matter more than raw horsepower, maybe the remote notion of a threat from mobile and mobile-inspired initiatives like Ouya which will make game development even MORE accessible and profitable for the thousands of mobile game developers out there. Maybe a pre-emptive strike against SteamBox (games can be coded to a standard PC-like architecture, be secured within a walled-garden kind of marketplace, and it all happens through someone as trusted and beloved as Valve ....good deal for developers).

Whatever, the reason, it's a good call - even if it makes them seem a bit tame (I was a little disappointed neither Microsoft nor Sony were trying something new on the hardware front).

If consoles are becoming more like PC's then why settle for the wannabe when you could have the original? I've played on PC for 15 years and never regretted it. The games I'd want to play which are console exclusive are few and far between. I've never paid so little for games, since I joined Steam and GoG. With my backlog, I don't need an expensive computer or even upgrade it once, although my want-to-play-list is ever increasing.

With each passing day I fear how much closer my computer grows to having to play games on lower and lower settings. It's alright for the most part though, it can max out most stuff but I just hope it doesn't drop too badly with next gen games.

What I envy about PC gamers is that they have more "freedom" when it comes to their games. They have less restrictions and do not have Sony or Microsoft to impose certain rules in order to enjoy their games.

pc is the greatest game console ever. "yesterday" we have ps2 emulator, but tomorrow we will have ps3 emulator and so on. if you guys have patience, you can wait someone to make emulator for every game console on the planet for pc.

I came here to leave some smart ass Alienware bashing comment, but I don't really have any responses besides calling this Azor guy Captain Obvious... But I mean REALLY??? It took you until these new consoles to figure that out?

@djames12345 Computers are better than consoles, that's a fact yet I prefer consoles, but I already saw that the new consoles are going to be better than a lot of computers that are out there on the market, yet this is just my opinion.

@devski I have my PC hooked up to 50" screen and have a windows Xbox 360 controller from my coutch. So, your talk about playing from the desk is a myth.

Also, I play all my games FULL HD 1080P taking FULL advantage of the resolution that my 50" screen provides, where as PS3 and Xbox 360 can only play at 720P in some cases they can even pull that like with Crysis 2 which doesn't even run at 720P HD resolution.

@devski Just to clarify if you are buying a £600 graphics card you are either running it at resolutions WAY higher than you need to for any reasonable enjoyment or you are buying the wrong card.

A GTX 680, Titan etc are stupidly powerful, and I'm not just talking playing Crysis 3 at 1080 and 50fps. A Titan benchmarks most of its games at WAY above 1080 because it can play anything you give it at 1080 without breaking a sweat.

Same with the 680 or 720 (780? can't remember) those ones anyway, are used by people who just want to show off and play everything one three screens.

For any normal person a cheaper card will suffice better to get a 650 or 660 for about a third of the price and you will still be able to play most games flat out at any reasonable resolution.

But I do agree with you. PC gaming is way more hassle than it is worth when you can simply order one console and some games and it will be up and running within ten minutes and you will be playing your games.

If you are awesome you could build a computer in a morning maybe, if it all goes to plan and you know what you are doing from the start. Installing all of the software when you are done assembling, making sure everything is running. What is the point? I want to play some games, not run my house from it.

PCs give better graphics but most of the games apart from real time strategy are the same as on console. So I ask again what is the point really? MMOs as well but that is probably going to change once Elder Scrolls Online, Planetside 2, Destiny all hit the consoles.

The only reason I play any PC games is because they are cheaper to buy on Steam and because I have a laptop that can play games. It can play Witcher 2 JUST with all but a select few settings on max. If I had to piss around with a desktop though I'd have given up long ago.

@MN121MN And you can get games that used to be console exclusives, and you can have all the bells and whistles that they're talking about on consoles social media programs, video recording, pictures, videos, everything that the new consoles are saying are a buying point. But which has existed for pc users for many years now.

@DamnILoveGames Next gen titles such as "Ryse Son of Rome" make me a bit worried that my system won't be able to handle it either. We'll just have to wait and see and I hope the game engines are as optimal as they can be .The Unreal Engine 3 is a very optimal engine for example which is why games made using that engine have incredible graphics while maintaining smooth play. I believe devs will continue to use that engine although UE4 is on its way.

@DamnILoveGames Actually it's probably going to be the opposite.Considering the new consoles have X86 architecture, we are less likely to see devs make unoptimized ports which run like emulators and expect the consumer hardware to compensate for it.

@Pmsmm Then u're 200% wrong(100% for XONE &100% for PS4)...consoles are always minority carriers for gaming experience whereas u knock the buttons of a keyboard and smash down mouse buttons just like holding a gun in one hand & a shield in the other...

@stev69 @Pmsmm @smizzoker yeah agreed. To say computers have a higher probability of breaking is not true at all. Oh and no, components made in consoles and then are now being made for pc's is very untrue, infact its the other way around. The reason for this is its cheaper for sony and microsoft to use pc components cause obviously they are mass produced and are much easier to work with. Its a good thing for consoles and i'm hugely excited to see what the ps4/xboxone can do.

@Pmsmm@smizzoker Actually the probability of a computer breaking isn't as high as you think.mine typically last until I wish to upgrade, i've only ever had to replace a faulty part once. And one i've had ten years plus and is still going strong.

@Warfighter_971@Pmsmm Like I said this is just my opinion and I'm not saying that this or that is better, for me the consoles transmit a bigger gaming experience, due to things that they have and will have, like the Rumble Motors, but this is just my opinion.

@devski I don't where in the world you got your list from but
none of the games you mentioned comes no where near running @1080P. You would be getting powerpoint slideshows.
All the Call of Duty games you mentioned runs below 720P resolution
@1024x600.LOL. They had to do that in order to get silky smooth resolution.
Uncharted 2 runs @720P I know this because when I played it on my PS3 by
Samsung 50" Plasma displays the relotion and it shows the current
resolution it's running in at 1280 x 720P. That's the same resolution for
Assassins Creed 2, Dead Space, Red Faction: Gurerrila. And Bioshock runs @680p.

@so_hai@ashyblood@aan782004 Lol, hypocrisy? Because a PC gamer want to play a few games that never made it to PC? Just because the consoles are inferior doesn't mean every single game for them are shit. It could just mean that the amount of games one would like to play is smaller than that for PC.